Pilbara Ore Horse working hard!

[Sitec]

Here's 015 and one of her sisters bringing up the rear of an FMG iron ore train. This pair are the tail end charlie's on an approx 2km long train! They assist with the hill out of the mine then run back to the mine 20 min later. Sound fantastic! The driver hooted as he went by, scared the c**p out of me! Sounds like a K5LA too!

[Sitec]

A pic of the ore carts passing. Each axle can carry 40 tonnes, there's 4 per cart, and there is 100+ carts per train....

[Sitec]

And the pair of helpers running back down the line 20min later....

[Ausfree]

Yeah, here in the Hunter Valley, the coal trains are not quite as long at just over a kilometre and they are usually pulled by two 90 class or three 80 class diesel loco's. They don't use the "pusher" system that you have outlined. In the old days with steam loco's, they used to call it "banking", this system was used by steam coal trains on the old Belmont line!!!:D

[Blknight.aus]

the reason for the pushers on the ore trains is given the length and weight of them while the header engines can pull them the accelerated wear on all the hitches and leading trailer equip getting up the hill was causing breakages leaving the train stranded on a few occasions.

[Bigbjorn]

Yeah, here in the Hunter Valley, the coal trains are not quite as long at just over a kilometre and they are usually pulled by two 90 class or three 80 class diesel loco's. They don't use the "pusher" system that you have outlined. In the old days with steam loco's, they used to call it "banking", this system was used by steam coal trains on the old Belmont line!!!:D

QR always called them "bankers" for additional push up a bank. The old Woolloongabba rail yards had a number of bankers and crews just to bank others up the Dutton Park Bank from Park Road.

[drivesafe]

MORE PLEASE

This is my favourite type of rail operation.

The term “Helper” is the Yank name for what is known here as a Banker or baking engine(s)

While I have not been there for about 4 years now, bank engine working was still in operation on the Liverpool Range at Ardglen, just south of Tamworth.

Back in the days when steam ruled, bank engine working was very commonplace.

Here are just some of the locations in NSW, where bank engine working took place.

Ardglen ( still operating today )

Cowan Bank ( Hawksbury River to Cowan )

Fassifern, Newcastle area

Unanderra to Summit Tank

Lithgow to Bell

Kelso ( Bathurst )

Tumulla Bank ( Bathurst area )

Thirroul to Waterfall

I sure others can add more bank engine working locations.

I have hours of video of Ardglen and was hoping to put a short video together to post up here but just can’t get the time.

I also have a short clip of a 38 banking ( head end ) another 38 at Robinson.

[Ausfree]

QR always called them "bankers" for additional push up a bank. The old Woolloongabba rail yards had a number of bankers and crews just to bank others up the Dutton Park Bank from Park Road.
Yep, that is exactly what happened on the old Belmont line, a steam loco would push from behind up the hill from Redhead to Whitebridge and then disengage and go back down the hill to Redhead to Lambton "B" Colliery to hook onto the front of another train. I used to stand on the bridge at Whitebridge and watch them coming up the hill.:D

Drivesafe, you can add the old Belmont line to your list of where "banking" took place.

[Sitec]

Managed to snap a shot of the head of a BHP train northbound to Pt Hedland. These guys do it slightly different to FMG. They have two loco's at the head and two smack in the middle. All four run all the way to Hedland. Not sure, but they might then split when there...?

[Sitec]

And the two in the middle! Sorry about pic quality, we were doing 80kph at the time on rough dirt!

[BDA]

Yes helper is an American term for additional locomotives and they can be mid train or at the tail end .
Generally they use a distributed power system that remotely controls other groups of engines . As mentioned mid or rear marshalled bank engines are not at the head end to prevent overloading of the drawbars/couplers . With big loads the in train forces can be huge .
I understand FMG banks loaded trains out of their mines in some places and the rear units drop off and return once the train is up and running and beyond rising grades .
Years ago I "fired" on coal trains out of Lithgow and often was banked as far as Zig Zag where the grade reduced .

Actually another location out west where trains were banked was from Molong to Orange East fork . I think it may have been the only place double header Garretts were used because of the 1:40 grades . This is a quite scenic stretch of line in daylight and a quick trip westbound for express freighters and the IP to just short of Molong . Very slow east bound for full load steel trains that often do it tough particularly on the bank out of Borenore .

A .

[Xtreme]

The Hammersley Range is around 700m ASL and I believe that the lines were routed such that the run down to the coast at Headland and Dampier was basically downhill all the way. So once clear of the pit the loaded trains enjoy a very economical run to the port/s. And of course, coming back empty is not such a problem.